This feels like a scene out of a teenage movie, jumping into the passenger seat of a boy’s car late at night. But it’s not like I can invite him inside. For one, Dahlia is sleeping on the couch, just inches from the small galley kitchen. And I don’t even have any beer in the fridge to offer him. Also, I don’t want a man in our house, one my daughters might hear or tell their father about.
I probably should go back inside, but it’s warm in his truck and I can’t sleep and … I’ve been thinking about Walker since he left me standing on the sidewalk a couple weeks ago.
“Just for a minute.” I nod, hustling around to the other side as I hear him click open the locks.
I pull myself up, shivering as the cold retreats and the heat hits my frozen nose.
“What’re you doing up at this hour, might I ask?” Walker smiles, and it’s like one of those perfect dental commercials.
“Sleep isn’t really my friend these days. And you? You’re just slacking off and goofing around now that the season is over?” I tease him just the tiniest bit.
Walker leans his head back against the seat and stretches his arms above his head. The dark red long sleeve he has on inches up, revealing a strip of muscled stomach. I try to avert my eyes, but it’s proving difficult.
“That’s me, slacker extraordinaire.” He thrusts a thumb at his chest. “Nah, I was over at Sinclair’s house. He’s just … well, you know my brother. Kind of. Then I got tired of it and decided to drive around. Truth be told, I am bored now that the season is over.”
Shane used to go through the same thing, this restlessness between either the playoffs or championships ending and the next season, or the training for one, starting anew. Idly, I wonder what he’s doing now that he no longer has baseball in his life. Days ago, that would have caused me immense guilt. But now, it’s simply an afterthought.
“You could always become my nanny. Or wait, don’t they need a new waiter at the Mexican restaurant in town? We both know you need the money,” I joke.
Until making light of his privilege, I forgot that this isn’t just a man, one who saved me in my darkest hour. No, once upon a time, Walker and I were actually friends. We would mingle at parties, he would come over just to barbecue with Shane and I before we were married. We had some inside jokes, and then there was that one dinner, back before I had a wedding band on my finger.
My mind drifts back to Charlotte, the road trip where Shane had to shoot a campaign in the middle. The way my fingers had drifted to the middle of the table, how Walker’s had, too …
Immense guilt used to fill me when I thought about that night, but now I only feel the crackling of chemistry between our bodies in the cold.
“I am pretty good at memorization. Think I could be one of those waiters who doesn’t use a pad, and just nods when you tell them the laundry list? I always marvel at those people.” His face is lit by the dashboard light, and I turn on my side, laying my head against the seat.
“Being a mom is kind of like that, trying to juggle sixty-five things in your brain at once.” I chuckle, because it’s true.
“How are Noelle and Breanna?” Walker smiles.
He’s always been good to my girls whenever he sees them. Getting down on their level, asking them questions relevant to that of a child’s brain.
I nod, as if I’m convincing myself. “They’re good, I’m pretty sure. Noelle started kindergarten and lost a tooth.”
“Big year for her.” Walker seems genuinely impressed.
“And we’ve started potty training for Breanna. Which isn’t as easy as it was with Noelle, but I think she’s getting the hang of it.”
I don’t miss the way his long, lean body tenses. “We?”
Crap. He thinks I’m talking about Shane. “Oh, um, my sister. Dahlia? I think you might have met her once or twice. She’s staying with me, helping out.”
Relief washes over his face, and I find myself leaning fractionally closer. “That’s really great. Good that you have family to lean on.”
I notice he doesn’t mention me leaning on him, like he did the first time he visited. He also doesn’t bring up anything about the trial, divorce, or Shane. For that, I’m thankful. I’m actually so tired of talking about it, between my family’s questions and the lawyer’s calls.
“I started working again,” I say quietly, because I’m not used to talking about myself.
Walker’s blue eyes light up with happiness, and a bit of surprise. “You did? Where, in a salon?”
Genuine shock moves through my chest. He remembered. I don’t even know the last time I talked about my hairdressing career, maybe back before I had the girls? But he remembered what I did.
“Yeah, as an apprentice,” I start, and launch into all of the workplace drama, and how happy it’s making me.
Walker lets me talk about myself, something I rarely ever do, and follows along excitedly, asking follow-up questions and teasing me lightheartedly. It’s the best talk I’ve had in months, and I don’t even notice the hours passing. We’re in our own little bubble, just him and I hiding out from the world and the cold.
I’m not sure how long we stay out there talking, but it’s a while. By the time I climb back into bed, thankful that tomorrow is a weekend and I don’t have a shift, the first rays of morning light are peeking through the curtain.
I drift off to sleep dreaming about Walker and me, alone in the dim light of his truck, talking about everything and nothing at all.
10
Hannah
“If at any time you feel unsafe, you alert me and I will summon the court officer.”
The district attorney, Laurel Phillipson, nods at me, reaching out to take my hand. I know she’s practiced this move, to keep victims or plaintiffs calm, but it’s not really working on me.
I feel like I could jump out of my skin at any moment. It’s the first time I have to see Shane, in person with my own two eyes, since he was arrested.
This hearing, a pre-trial hearing, was supposed to be two weeks to thirty days after Shane’s arraignment, where he entered a not guilty plea, but his lawyers kept getting it pushed back. Laurel told me it was so they could try to poke holes in a possible defense and get the charges dismissed, and not only did that piss me off but it made Shane look worse in my eyes. Not that he had any further to sink, really.
And while we are here to offer a deal, one I agreed to after Laurel talked to me about how likely sentencing would be for Shane if we took it to a bench or jury trial, the district attorney warned me that my husband’s side would try to get the charges dismissed on some grounds. I have to steel my heart to this, try not to react to it.
Shane, and his lawyers, are going to walk in here and try to act like this never happened. Like the man I loved the most in my life hadn’t been beating me to a pulp for the last five years. That he hadn’t put me down emotionally, verbally, even sexually. The man couldn’t even own up to what he’d done, which is how I know he isn’t only not sorry, but he still doesn’t give two shakes to my well-being. How had I missed that, so long ago? Was I just so infatuated, and fell in love so quickly, that I ignored the monstrous traits inside him?